Shunra Professional Services

Project Report for:

Fortune 500 Company


Project:
Data Center Relocation
Application Performance Assessment

October 2009






Shunra Professional Services



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Executive Summary............................................................................................................. 3
Project Overview.............................................................................................................. 3
Engagement Objective..................................................................................................... 4
Approach.......................................................................................................................... 4
Results and Analysis........................................................................................................ 5
Results Overview............................................................................................................. 6
Next Steps ....................................................................................................................... 7
Single User Analysis............................................................................................................ 8
Methodology .................................................................................................................... 8
Application Dependencies ................................................................................................. 12
Methodology .................................................................................................................. 12
Bandwidth Utilization.......................................................................................................... 13
Methodology .................................................................................................................. 13
Single User Analysis Results............................................................................................. 14
Analysis Summary ......................................................................................................... 14
Outlook Application Analysis.......................................................................................... 26
Application Dependencies ................................................................................................. 29
Top Servers ................................................................................................................... 29
Top Applications ............................................................................................................ 31
Bandwidth Utilization.......................................................................................................... 32
Network Trending........................................................................................................... 32
Activity Summary ........................................................................................................... 33
Appendices ........................................................................................................................ 34
Appendix A - WAN Conditions ....................................................................................... 34


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Executive Summary
Project Overview
A Minneapolis based company (The Company) is planning to move their Data
Center from downtown Minneapolis to a facility in Eagen, MN with networking
provided by The Network Provider. The details of the move were not yet finalized,
and it is yet to be determined if the move will take place in once or more stages.
The Company wants to ensure that end user performance of critical business
applications will not be negatively impacted as a result of the Data Center move.
The Company engaged Shunra's Professional Services to provide predictive
analysis of the applications' Quality of Experience and network impact. This will
help them make informed decisions about the type of WAN link needed and the
order of server migration.
Figure 1: The Production Network after the Data Center Move



















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Engagement Objective

The goals of this engagement were to:

Analyze End User Performance of 12 business applications: Using Shunra's
Single User Analysis methodology, a predictive report was generated listing
end-user response times for typical business processes of 12 applications. This
would also provide insight into application performance after the data center
move from the end-user perspective.
Identify Application Dependencies: Some of the applications being moved have
distributed architectures. The Company wants to identify application \ server
dependencies in the data center.
Analyze Bandwidth Requirements: The Company wants to properly equip their
network to ensure that sufficient bandwidth is available to run the required
applications, while also making sure that money is not wasted on excess
bandwidth.


Approach

Shunras Professional Services used Shunras Virtual Enterprise (Shunra VE)
solution to build the Shunra VE Lab (see Figure 4).

In order to measure business application transaction times, Shunra consultants
built a network template using VE Modeler. This template represented a variety of
WAN conditions as defined in the Service Level Agreements signed with the
Network Provider.

The lab environment was used to emulate the operation of each application to be
moved, and predict application performance before and after the move.
Business users performed business transactions similar to those theyd perform
conducting their day-to-day responsibilities. This was done using multiple WAN
scenarios, each reflecting a different set of WAN conditions, and using VE


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Transaction Manager to record response times. Then, using data collected by VE
Reporter, Shunra consultants were able to analyze the results.

The infrastructure used for testing was the Production environment located at the
companys facilities in Minneapolis. For a detailed description of the Shunra VE
methodology see the Methodology section.

At the same time, Shunra consultants connected a network probe to a port on the
Company's main production switch. This captured all traffic on the production
network. By capturing traffic for 3 days and then filtering out all traffic except that
between the Companys production servers, the team was able to compile a
Server Dependency Mapping Report.

Shunra consultants also captured Network Trending statistics for a 24 hour period
which showed Bandwidth Utilization between the clients and servers on the
production network.

For a detailed description of the Network Capturing methodology see the
Methodology section.

Results and Analysis

1. Quality of Experience of a Single User: The twelve critical business
applications profiled yielded differing sensitivities to WAN conditions. Sensitivity
to WAN conditions was also detected in different business processes within
applications.
There were 125 total transactions measured for the twelve applications. This
pie chart below shows the percentage increase of Single User Transaction
Response Times, comparing the best conditions after the Data Center Move
with current conditions. The ranges signify transaction times which were:
Better than current conditions
Less than one and a half times current conditions
Less than double current conditions
Over twice that of current conditions.



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Figure 2: Single User Analysis Summary
















Results Overview

This section provides an overview of results that were obtained during testing. For
a more detailed description of these results, see the section titled "Critical
Business Applications Results.

Applications with Transactions Most Sensitive to WAN Conditions

Applications that were identified as most sensitive to WAN conditions are those
that have multiple transactions, and in which Single User Transaction Times from
the After Data Center Move Best Case emulation is more than double current
conditions. These applications include the following:
Carpe Diem
Network Shares
Introspect
SydneyPlus




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Applications with Transactions Somewhat Sensitive to WAN Conditions

Applications that were identified as somewhat sensitive to WAN conditions are
those with Single User Transaction Times from the After Data Center Move Best
Case emulation, and that are more than one and a half times that of current
conditions. These applications include the following:
Outlook
File Site
Elite
Interaction
Ultipro
IPMaster
PracticeMnager

Applications with Transactions Least Sensitive to WAN Conditions

Applications that were identified as least sensitive to WAN conditions are those
with All Single User Transaction Times from the After Data Center Move Best Case
emulation that are less than one and a half times current conditions. These
applications include the following:

Lookup Precision
New Matter Approval

2. Dependency Map: A Server Dependency Mapping Report has been generated
to assist the company in determining a strategy for a possible phased approach
to server migration. This will be delivered separately as the document 'Server
Dependency Mapping.xls.'

3. Bandwidth Utilization: Bandwidth Utilization statistics for and servers over a
24 hour period were provided to the Company to assist in determining the
services which will be leased from The Network Provider. See the section
titled Bandwidth Utilization below.

Next Steps



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This section reviews steps that have been deemed as desirable following review of
the results just described:

The above results identified a group of transactions that will experience
significant performance degradation (150% of baseline and above). For these
transactions additional testing is recommended to better understand the root
cause of performance slow down. This process should include:
o Additional testing under network and potentially under end user load
conditions
o Deep packet analysis of poorly performing transactions
o Assessing the potential impact of performance improving solutions such
as application tuning, application accelerators and WAN optimization
solutions using performance ROI metrics. This will be done as part of the
customers evaluation of such solutions.
Moving a data center in multiple phases will introduce distance between
servers during intermediate relocation steps. This distance can severely impact
system performance and should not be overlooked. In the multi-step relocation
scenario , we recommend testing the impact of intermediate steps on server
and end-user performance.
Single User Analysis

Methodology

Planning and Design

The first step in modeling potential WAN characteristics of the Company's
production network after the data center move was to understand the network
components and conditions. Based on data provided by the Company, the
following WAN scenarios were designed for testing:

Local User Current Conditions
After Data Center Move Best Case
After Data Center Move Average Case
After Data Center Move Worst Case


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Denver/Boulder Current Conditions (Outlook and Interwoven only)

Appendix A for a detailed description of the Wide Area Network (WAN) conditions
for the scenarios

Figure 3: The Shunra VE Network Modeling Template



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Test Preparation

Shunra worked with the Company to define business processes for all critical
business applications to be used in the simulation. User activities for each of the
12 applications profiled were chosen by a Company representative.
The applications to be profiled were all installed and run from an IBM X60 laptop
located in the Shunra lab in the Library on the 21st floor.

Figure 4: Test Setup














Test Execution

Overall, 12 applications were profiled during 7 days of testing. Testing took place in
two primary stages:

Baseline Single User Transaction Response Time over the existing
environment.
Execute Transactions over possible configurations of the future network.
The same set of business transactions was executed over various WAN
conditions for the new data center and the execution times were recorded.




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Figure 5: Testing Method










Reporting: Shunra's VE Reporter produced reports on transaction response times
for the emulated scenarios. Application analysis reports were generated for the
Outlook application. Application analysis included a native packet capture and a
break down of Client, Network, and Server (CNS) times.







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Application Dependencies
Methodology
Planning and Design
Figure 6: Network Probe Setup

















Collection and Analysis

A data collecting probe was connected to a SPAN port to analyze communications
traffic to production servers. After 3 days of collection, this data was used to
generate a communications map that shows what protocols talk to which servers,
and how much data is transferred during different periods of times (peak, late
night, etc.). Please refer to Appendix B1 for the filter specifications used on the
probe.


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Bandwidth Utilization
Methodology
Planning and Design

The same hardware and software used for Application Dependency Mapping was
used for Network Trending Analysis.

Collection and Analysis

The filter for the Network probe was reconfigured for a 24 hour period to capture
only traffic from workstations to servers.

Please refer to Appendix B2 for the filter specifications used on the probe.













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Single User Analysis Results
Analysis Summary
Transactions Most Sensitive to WAN conditions
For the following business transactions, the times for the best WAN conditions
were greater than double those for the current LAN conditions.
















Current Denver Conditions
Business transactions for Outlook and File Site applications were profiled under
network conditions emulating the current conditions from the Denver/Boulder
offices.
Microsoft Outlook: Results showed that Denver users are experiencing similar
single user response times to those experienced by Minneapolis when conducting


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Outlook 'Search Contact' and 'Open Attachment' transactions. They experience
longer transaction times for the 'Load Attachment' transaction, which included a
large attachment to a Meeting Request.


Figure 7: Outlook Test Results




File Site: These results showed that Denver users are experiencing similar single
user response times to Minneapolis users for File Site business transactions with
the following exceptions:
File Email: File Email with a 3MB attachment
Document Import: Import new 3MB Document into a workspace folder
Profile Search
Note: Results displayed were formulated without the presence of a caching
server. An evaluation is recommended to determine if an improvement in
performance can be obtained with the use of a caching server.


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Critical Business Applications Results
Listed below are the single user analysis results for each of the twelve business
critical applications that were profiled.
Transactions for which the Best Case after the DC Move are >150% of the LAN
timings are highlighted in yellow.
Transactions for which the Best Case after the DC Move are >200% of the LAN
timings are highlighted in red.



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Outlook Application Analysis
A more in-depth analysis of Outlook was performed using VE Analyzer. This
analysis helped pinpoint the cause of transaction sensitivity to WAN conditions,
and is described below.
Search Contact
The Response Time Breakdown showed the following percentages:
Client - 61.11%: A significant amount of time is spent on the client. Therefore is
becomes clear that end user experience is affected by individual host
configuration, such as programs running on the host, its hardware resources,
etc.
Network - 16.67%: This portion of the end user experience is the most likely to
be affected by WAN conditions


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Server - 22.22%: The amount of time that the transaction spends on backend
servers. This is caused by factors such as multiple users competing for system
resources, and other activities which also use server resources.

Figure 9: Search Contact CNS Breakdown










Load Attachment
Figure 10: Load Attachment Timing Summary














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The Response Time Breakdown shows the following:
The transaction spends the bulk of its time traversing the network, and is likely to
be very sensitive to WAN conditions. This is demonstrated by the graph above
after a preliminary root cause analysis. Further testing and analysis is
recommended in order to obtain more definitive results.

Figure 11: Load Attachment CNS Breakdown








Open Attachment

Figure 12: Open Attachment Timing Summary










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The Response Time Breakdown shows the following:
This transaction spends the bulk of its time on the Client, and is less likely to be
sensitive to WAN conditions. This is demonstrated by the graph above after a
preliminary root cause analysis. Further testing and analysis is recommended for
more definitive results.
Figure 13: Open Attachment CNS Breakdown

Application Dependencies
Top Servers

A complete report of Server Traffic was delivered separately in Excel and Access
format. The following shows the Top 2-10 Servers by Total Bytes of traffic over the
time.








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Figure 14: Top 2-10 Servers



























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The following chart shows the Top 3-10 Applications.
Figure 15: Top 3-10 Applications
















Top Applications

A complete report of Application Traffic was delivered separately in Excel and Access format. The following
lists the Top 10 Applications by Total Bytes of traffic over time:







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Table 16. Top 10 Applications by Total Traffic (Bytes)

Bandwidth Utilization
Network Trending
The following is a snapshot of Packets/second and Bytes/second of traffic between
Workstations and Servers during the daytime.














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Activity Summary
Table 17: Activity Summary Traffic

























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Appendices
Appendix A - WAN Conditions











Appendix B was excluded
Appendix C was excluded